[R-SIG-Mac] Using Microsoft Access from a Macintosh using R

[iist_em@ii m@iii@g oii icioud@com]

How can I make a Mac get data from a Microsoft Access database using R?

I’m sorry if this has been asked a million times before but the list archives don’t seem to be searchable and the Mac FAQ doesn’t mention this.

Also, I’m asking for a colleague who doesn’t like messing around with a lot of technical computer stuff and I do not have R on my own system. So please be patient.

It seems that there is a package called RODBC which needs to be installed. Is that done using R’s package manager?

And it seems that there is a driver from Actual Technologies with a Mac installer package.

Assuming that these two steps are taken, is there anything else that needs to be done? Can R then access the Access database directly or is there an intermediate step such as an Excel file? Is there a very short MWE
that demonstrates accessing a public Microsoft Access database using this method?

My colleague is thinking of buying a Windows system just to solve this problem!

Many thanks,

Jerry